‘Clarence Veysey,’ said the Bishop, ‘is my secretary, my private chaplain, and my pupil. He is himself in full priest’s orders, and will instruct you in the rudiments of our Faith. We do not substitute one authority for another, Lord Chester. You will be exhorted to try and examine for yourself the doctrines before you accept them. Yet you will understand that what you are taught stood the test of question, doubt, and attack for more than two thousand years before it was violently torn from mankind. Go, my son, receive instruction with docility; but do not fear to question and to doubt.’
‘I am indeed a priest,’ said Clarence Veysey, taking him into the library. ‘I have been judged worthy of the laying on of hands.’
‘And do not your friends know or suspect?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘It is, in fact’—here he blushed and hesitated—‘a position of great difficulty. I must, perforce, until we are ripe for action, act a deceptive part. The necessity for concealment is a terrible thing. Yet, what help? One remembers him who bowed himself in the House of Rimmon.’
‘The concealment,’ said Lord Chester, unfeelingly, because he knew nothing about Naaman, ‘would be part of the fun.’
‘The fun?’ this young priest gasped. ‘But, of course—you do not know. We are in deadly earnest, and he calls it—fun: we strive for the return of the world to the Faith, and he calls it—fun!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Lord Chester. ‘I seem—I hardly know why—to have offended you. I really think it must be very good fun to have this pretty secret all to yourself when you are at home.’
‘Oh! he is very—very ignorant,’ cried Clarence.
‘Well——’ Lord Chester did not mind being instructed by the old Bishop or by the Professor. But the superiority of this smooth-cheeked youth of his own age galled him. Nevertheless, he saw that the young priest was deeply in earnest, and he restrained himself.
‘Teach me, then,’ he said.